September 5, 1972. On this day, the Summer Games in Munich, West Germany was best remembered not for the world-class athletes who dominated the various field of sports, rather, by the terrorists called Black September who killed 11 athletes and coaches from the Israeli Olympic team.
Photo of one of the terrorists, who was looking over at the Israeli team quarter's balcony
Sneaking in at the athlete’s village, five of the Palestinian terrorists managed to barge into the athlete’s room of Israel’s Olympic team, killing a wrestling coach as well as a weightlifting athlete.
Nine other athletes, later on, were held hostage that day as the Palestinian terrorists were joined by three of their comrades. They all demanded the release of 200 Arab prisoners while they be given passage out of West Germany.
The website www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org narrated this incident.
After the helicopters landed at the air base around 10:30 p.m., the German sharpshooters attempted to kill the terrorists and a bloody firefight ensued.
At 11, the media was mistakenly informed that the hostages had been saved and the news was announced to a relieved Israeli public. Almost an hour later, however, new fighting broke out and one of the helicopters holding the Israelis was blown up by a terrorist grenade. The remaining nine hostages in the second helicopter were shot to death by one of the surviving terrorists.
At 3 a.m., a drawn and teary-eyed Jim McKay, who had been reporting the drama throughout the day as part of ABC’s Olympic coverage, announced: “They’re all gone.”
Five of the terrorists were killed along with one policeman, and three were captured.